


By Winter

by Senri



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat, necrosis gets me hot too, the plaguebringer loves it, there are so many ways to die in cold places
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Senri/pseuds/Senri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are a lot of ways to die in the cold; the Plaguebringer appreciates one especially.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Winter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cephalopod](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cephalopod/gifts).



> Dear Cephalopod,
> 
> Your prompt intrigued me. I didn't manage to make it blatantly shippy, because I almost never do! But I hope this will be enjoyable for you anyway. Happy Yuletiding!

The sky did things with the color blue in the land of floes that no other country would ever see. Winter days were short and night swept in quickly; darkness fell. The sky, a flat, depthless expanse of pale blue during the day, began to deepen and appear translucent, coloring at the edge with deep azure that slowly filled the entire sky. Point by point, stars became visible. It was a beautiful sight, although only the unluckiest dragons would be out to see it.

The unluckiest dragons and the Icewarden, who never felt the cold. He plowed through the snowfields. Herds of caribou bedded down for the night shifted before him, though they couldn’t see him, and found other places to be; pika in their tunnels under the snow tunneled swiftly away. Spruce trees trembled in the breeze at his passage. The Icewarden was alone and glad for it. His land was a cruel place, inhospitable and inviting to life; the creatures that made their way there were hardy, but no match for him, his followers the same. Should a dragon be foolish enough to be out and about in a night of cruel cold like this, they deserved what they got, was his perspective.

The first hint that he was not, in fact, alone, was the slow wind that began to move over the landscape, carrying with it the heavy, wet smell of rot.

An odor like that was entirely foreign to his lands. The Icewarden didn’t have the best sense of smell out of his fellow gods, but it was so strong it was impossible to miss. He stopped his trek and raised his head to sniff the air, turning his head into the beginning wind. Then he changed his course that way.  
He cut through sparsely wooded slopes, twice downhill and twice up, before he crested the next hill and finally caught sight of the source of the scent.

The other gods did not visit, so it took him a moment to register that it was the Plaguebringer, and that she was turned in his direction; she knew he was there. The raw pinkish sheen of her hide was unmistakable, and all the spikes. The Icewarden flashed his long canine teeth, though she wouldn’t be close enough to  
glimpse that, and increased his pace to a lope that would quickly bring him abreast with her.

“What brings you here?” he said, once within hailing distance. “You are far from your own lands. There will be little for you to consume here.”

“I am everywhere.” Her voice was a phlegmy purr, a slough. Creatures sank below the sea ice sometimes and were consumed on the sea floor, piece by piece bits of flesh winnowed away until only stark bone was left; she had a voice like that winnowing. “It was no great journey… it _occurred_ to me that I came everywhere, saw everything of mine there was to see, but I had not been here in a long while.”

He could imagine her flying to the edge of the ice, dripping parts of herself into the sea as she came.

She could do little harm to anything here, truly. But territoriality was still a concern. The Icewarden paced nearer, unfortunately closer to scenting distance, flaring his wings. “The followers here are mine. Lay a claw on them to your detriment.”

“I need lay no claw,” came the lazy retort. “Rot happens differently here than it does elsewhere. That is why I came. See.” She turned her back on him, an insult and no risk to her given the formidable spikes lining her spine. He saw beyond her what caught her interest.

A stumbling dragon – an imperial. Young by its look, not quite to its adult size, though out of baby feathers. One of his own tundras would never be in such sorry condition as this dragon. Imperials preferred to fly. This dragon stumbled through the snow, breaking trail with its shoulders and forelegs and breathing plumes of steam into the dry, freezing air.

And he could see the blackening flesh on the wings and extremities. The true end of the affliction of frostbite, which began blue, and then turned back as the flesh went necrotic… rotting on the living dragon, like a bunch of grapes rotting on the vine.

“Your cold is what does it,” she purred at his silence. “As cruel as my plagues. Ah…” The catch of breath that came from her as the Imperial stumbled was obscene. The slow exhale as the dragon struggled to its feet again, disappointed.

“This drake may have begun his life as one of yours,” she whispered to the Icewarden. “But look. He will end it as one of mine.”

As many dragons did.

The Icewarden was silent. His was a hard land – it was his pride. His followers were strong, and only the strongest could survive the land of floes, of twenty-four hour winter nights, of aurora and winter gales, short summers and long colds.

She was slavering, he saw, long strings of phlegmy drool stringing from her jaws, dripping occasionally into the snow. “Come with me,” she murmured, following after the flagging Imperial like a raven would follow a wounded animal. Just exactly like that.

The weak would out themselves and suffer for their weakness. It was the way of the land of glaciers and floes.

Silently, the Icewarden followed her.


End file.
